Locations
In this experiment, we leverage the power of one.
Hardened Scales is no Doubling Season. Just ask any Planeswalker. (Though I guess Ajani might not mind the difference.)
But if we set up the circumstances correctly, Hardened Scales actually does a perfectly serviceable Doubling Season impression for 
less.
1-Drops
Chronomaton – We know we’ll be playing green, and Chronomaton is quite a strong front-liner for a Hardened Scales deck. It doesn’t enter the battlefield as a 2/2 the way options such as Arcbound Worker would, but if we cast it on the first turn and follow up with Hardened Scales, we can activate the wind-up Golem for 2 more counters on turn two, setting us up for a 3-power attack on turn three. That said, Chronomaton isn’t built for the early aggression. Even with Hardened Scales, it’ll take the little guy a while to wind up, but eventually, especially with more than one copy of the Scales, he’ll grow quite large.
Cenn's Tactician – This gal has a kind of outlast ability, though she has a couple of big bonuses. The first one is that her ability can be activated at instant speed, unlike outlast, which can only be cast during our own turn. Second, she can pump up any Soldier. While this isn’t a Soldier deck, we do have another target for the Tactician’s ability, so while she’ll usually be pumping herself, much like the Chronomaton above, we can potentially have other options. And as though that weren’t enough, she gives basically all our creatures the ability to block additional creatures. We’re hoping to be on the offensive, but the option is always nice.
Favored Hoplite – This heroic guy starts out a bit bigger than the rest, but he relies on outside sources for his growth. That said, he also has some of the most potential for high-powered, early-turns attacking. If we play the Hoplite on the first turn and cast Hardened Scales and then a counter-applying spell on the second turn, he can be attacking for 5 on turn two, all while ready to attack for potentially even more on the next turn.
Herald of Anafenza – It looks like endgame may not be a problem for us. Herald of Anafenza can take a while to get going, and it takes 3 to activate rather than the Chronomaton or Cenn's Tactician’s 1, but the Herald brings along with it a 1/1 token to be pumped by a couple of our later cards. The Herald is also our other Solider to be pumped by the Tactician; unfortunately, the token trigger only occurs when we use outlast.
Simic Initiate – Here is another early drop. It’s not great before a Hardened Scales, as it’s only a 1/1 for 1. If we follow it up with a Hardened Scales, it can potentially turn into 2 +1/+1 counters after a graft trigger, but that’s still not too impressive. However, if we play the Initiate after the Scales, it will enter with 2 +1/+1 counters, each of which can turn into 2 more; thus, we’d have made 4 +1/+1 counters for only 
, which I do consider quite a good deal.
Mikaeus, the Lunarch – And this is our last endgame option. If Herald of Anafenza is making a bunch of creature tokens, and we’re flooding the board with our own little guys, Mikaeus will potentially be able to permanently pump them by +2/+2 every turn. Like Feral Hydra, he can be a big beater in his own right, but with multiple copies of Hardened Scales, his pump-our-team ability will be hard to pass up.
Instants and Friends
Burst of Strength – Strictly better than Battlegrowth, this will give a creature 1 or more counters depending on the number of Scales we control. It’s not super-impressive, as it offers the same 2-counters-for- ratio I derided above, but enacting it at instant speed is better than doing so at graft speed, and it also untaps our target, letting us reuse Chronomaton, Cenn's Tactician, Herald of Anafenza, or Mikaeus, the Lunarch.
Hunger of the Howlpack – This instant supplies potentially far more than 1 counter, even without Hardened Scales. I don’t know how frequently creatures will be dying at times when we’ll be able to make use of the clutter of counters, but the potential this card offers for only is hard to pass up for a deck like this.
Thrive – Thrive is perfect for us. Easily beating out Nature's Panoply for mana efficiency, Thrive can pump as many of our creatures as we can afford to pay for, at the affordable ratio of 
. With a couple copies of Hardened Scales on the battlefield, Thrive becomes an instant Overrun.
Blade of the Bloodchief – Some part of me believes this is the strongest card in the deck, perhaps because I’ve witnessed much of its potential in Commander. However, another part of me believes this should just be cut and replaced by more copies of Burst of Strength. As was my reservation with Hunger of the Howlpack, I’m not sure how many creatures will be dying at times when we’ll be able to capitalize off it, and even so, our equipped creature will only be growing at a Chronomaton’s pace. Blade of the Bloodchief is splashy, and it only costs 1 mana and grants counters, so it fits the theme, but it’d have to convince me in play that it actually deserves its spot. Update: As Jonathan pointed out in the comments, the original decklist didn't actually include Hardened Scales! Some numbers were shifted, and that problem was rectified, but Blade of the Bloodchief lost its slots in the process.
Gavony Township – Okay, so maybe I was lying about Blade of the Bloodchief seeming like the strongest card in the deck. Gavony Township sees Modern play and is quite powerful in Commander as well. The Township acts as a Mikaeus, the Lunarch that never runs out of fuel and that can’t be easily removed. It costs significantly more mana to activate, but it costs none to play, and the large activation cost just means Township answers the question of what we’ll be doing with all our late-game mana.
1 Deck ? Casual | Andrew Wilson
- Creatures (26)
- 4 Cenn's Tactician
- 4 Chronomaton
- 4 Favored Hoplite
- 4 Feral Hydra
- 4 Herald of Anafenza
- 4 Simic Initiate
- 2 Mikaeus, the Lunarch
- Spells (12)
- 2 Burst of Strength
- 2 Hunger of the Howlpack
- 3 Thrive
- 1 Forced Adaptation
- 4 Hardened Scales
- Lands (22)
- 4 Forest
- 4 Plains
- 2 Gavony Township
- 4 Razorverge Thicket
- 4 Sunpetal Grove
- 4 Temple Garden
If you’re sick of one always being the loneliest number, give this deck a try.
Andrew Wilson
fissionessence at hotmail dot com
